


Warm the Coldest Heart

by Behind_The_Hood



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Arguing, Assassination Attempt(s), Assassination Plot(s), Beating, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Cold Weather, Cursed, Death Threats, Enemies to Lovers, Flirting, Freezing, Kidnapping, M/M, Minor Injuries, Naga, Or Blessed Depending On Your View, Recovery, Rescue, Rescue Missions, Search for a Cure, Short Lived Depression, Starvation, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Threats of Violence, kind of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:35:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22216417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Behind_The_Hood/pseuds/Behind_The_Hood
Summary: Fear grips him, his heart pounding, and Laurent tries to back away from his own body, hands dragging his new weight.His pants are in tatters, the seams split and laces ripped. Every other blink, he sees nothing but an orange outline of what used to be his legs thinning out and growing bluer by the second. Laurent takes in quick, frantic breaths. His tongue has stopped bleeding, mostly, clotted and thick in his mouth. Laurent looks up at the shaman, frowning down at him. Her whispering has stopped, her eyes normal once more. Her shoulders are slumped, and her brows furrowed.She looks drained. Defeated. Disquieted.In Vaskian, she asks, “Does your body still work?”
Relationships: Damen & Nikandros (Captive Prince), Damen/Laurent (Captive Prince), Halvik & Laurent, Laurent & Lazar
Comments: 6
Kudos: 39
Collections: Captive Prince Reverse Bang 2019





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My dudes. So much went into this. I hope I did Nagas justice because they have A LOT of references. Enjoy the story and the beautiful artwork that comes with it!!
> 
> Come check out the lovely artist's other works!
> 
> https://linecrosser.tumblr.com/
> 
> https://alinecrosser.wordpress.com/

His memories…they come to him slowly, in dark flashes that fade before he has the image fully formed. The blow, the blood running in his eye, the ground coming to meet his face—perhaps the other way around. His feet dragging, the blue tips to his boots scuffing on rock and dirt. The smell of horses, the sight of them, his own mare slaughtered on the ground beside the rest. All of them anxious at the sight of a dead companion.

Laurent drags himself into consciousness with lead in his limb and cotton in his mouth, his eyes burning, head throbbing, thoughts addled.

Before he can attempt to gather his bearings, he’s jerked to his feet from wherever he was laid out. He stumbles, his feet tripping up and catching under him. His hair is gripped in a fist, pulling the pain in his head to the pressure on those follicles.

Laurent hears a deep chuckle beside his ear, and he knows that sound, that voice. He’d swear it on his life. But with his eyes closed and his focus all falling to the pain he’s feeling in pinpoints across his body, as though he’d taken a beating he cannot remember having received, he cannot place a name to the person it belongs to.

“Wakey-wakey, Princess,” the voice says, breath hot on his skin, rank in his nose.

 _Govart_.

Laurent pries his eyes open, stinging, and he’s assaulted with the harsh light of the sun streaming in from the circular window on the wall overhead, a wall of rock. A quick glance shows the whole room is rock, and resembles a chapel. There’s what looks to be a woman with horns standing before the light, shadowed by it, but she bears a dagger before her, muttering words under her breath. It’s Old Vaskian, something Laurent recognizes but cannot make out.

He tugs at his wrists on instinct, but they are held in Govart’s unforgiving grip.

The woman takes a step closer, revealing her form and dress to the candlelight. She wears a headdress of stringed bone beads and ram horns, red ceremonial paints on her face and arms—cracked like dry blood, furs and bones draped over her body like a shaman. She opens her eyes, pupils in slits, then closes them again and kisses the blades tip, nicking her flesh and pouring blood down its edge.

Laurent tenses as she steps closer again, eyes open to show the slits of her pupils gone. Govart’s grip increases, drawing Laurent’s lips back in a sneer. He struggles as she steps ever closer, his fear growing real, potent. She is still whispering words, old and broken, clicking and rolling. Her cracked fingers reach to his lips and, when they don’t part, waits as Govart squeezes his jaw opens until he is forced to open his mouth to her.

She takes his tongue, held tight with wicked nails, eyes focused and unblinking. She brings the knife up, pupils thinning to slits once more, and Laurent begins struggling in earnest.

And in vain.

A nick to the tip of his tongue.

Laurent freezes, breathing hard and too scared to move. She stops her words, breathing a heavy sigh. Laurent cannot move at all. He cannot move. For fear or otherwise, his muscles will not shift to his command and he knows, _he knows_ , the worst is yet to come.

She presses her blade forward, slicing more of his tongue down its center. Laurent can feel it, the fire and ice of the pain, the lightning it sends down his spine, through his mind.

He’s choking on the blood.

Laurent tries to rip himself away, screaming and retching, kicking and writhing.

When he next blinks his eyes open, he sees a lot of blue, with a yellow humanoid silhouette before him. He blinks again, rapidly, and the shaman is there once more, whispering again.

Laurent grows cold after that. Blood is still pooling in his mouth, but it slows, and he grows languid. And heavy. So, so heavy.

“What the fu--!”

Laurent hears ripping, feels heavier still, and hits the ground hard. Govart must have thrown him.

He tries to sit up, to spit the clotting blood from his mouth, but his legs flop about uselessly. He looks down at himself, wondering at the strangeness in his legs, and sees not legs at all, but his flesh melding together, blending, thickening, scaling rapidly.

Fear grips him, his heart pounding, and Laurent tries to back away from his own body, hands dragging his new weight.

His pants are in tatters, the seams split and laces ripped. Every other blink, he sees nothing but an orange outline of what used to be his legs thinning out and growing bluer by the second. Laurent takes in quick, frantic breaths. His tongue has stopped bleeding, mostly, clotted and thick in his mouth. Laurent looks up at the shaman, frowning down at him. Her whispering has stopped, her eyes normal once more. Her shoulders are slumped, and her brows furrowed.

She looks drained. Defeated. Disquieted.

In Vaskian, she asks, “Does your body still work?”

Govart is distracted, staring at Laurent’s tail with unmasked horror. Laurent swallows, his eyes moving back to her. He blinks several times, vision shifting, and he flops the end of his tail, heavy and uncoordinated. She watches with a grim set to her lips.

She meets his gaze. “Leave. Quickly.”

Laurent scrambles to roll over, to drag himself out as the shaman leaps onto Govart’s back, stabbing her blade into his shoulder. Despite claiming his body can work, Laurent has no idea how to move the tail. Govart screams behind him, the cries of them men readying for a fight goes up, and Laurent just makes it through the door in time for the sound of women’s voices to sound through the room as well.

The entrance to the rocky alter room leads out into a tunnel system. Caves. They’re deep in the mountains that line Vask and Vere. Where along that line he is, he couldn’t say, but now wouldn’t be the time regardless.

Laurent digs his bleeding, clawed nails into the rock and drags himself to the right, farther from the sounds of metal meeting metal and people dying. There are no torches leading this way, making Laurent harder to spot once they notice he’s gone. But with the lack of light, this is also a path less traveled based on the jagged ground cutting into his palms and scales.

Laurent bites his lip against the pain and ventures on, arms shaking with the effort to keep going.

The tunnel narrows out the farther down he goes, so he pulls his tail close and bides his time.

It is only seconds later that he can hear Govart’s gruff voice. “Find him! The abomination couldn’t have gotten far with that heavy tail slowing him down.”

Laurent cannot see for the curve in the tunnel, be he watches torch lights flicker and fade, only one measly light remaining. He watches, nerves on high, as it comes closer.

He sees an orange body step, hunched, around the corner, holding the burning light low with the falling ceiling. He blinks again, squinting, and sees Govart standing there, looking at the dark to see if he can find Laurent. Laurent waits with bated breath, sick with terror, choking of fear, but eventually Govart shakes his head and turns to leave.

Laurent doesn’t leave his spot for a long time after that, long enough for the adrenaline to leave him shaking and the panic to set in.

When more time still has passed and not a sound has been made by even a rodent hiding within the caves to keep safe from the weather outside, Laurent makes his first hesitant moves back to the shaman’s ritual room.

The journey there feels longer than when he’d fled, tired and sore, his tongue and tail throbbing, head and arms throbbing, eyes throbbing, everything throbbing, he’s slowed considerably. And what he finds is a blood bath and the women in the room all viciously slaughtered.

Only four of Govart’s men lie dead amongst the eleven women sprawled about. Laurent’s body slides more smoothly with the blood slicking his scales. All of the women have their throat slit open despite other wounds littering their bodies, as though Govart hadn’t trusted them to truly be dead.

Laurent comes to a stop above the shaman, her body twisted at the waist and a jagged cut along her neck like the rest of the women. Her chest has a gaping hole in it as well, blood pooling out of her hanging jaw. Her heart is missing, ripped from her chest.

Laurent stares down at her with a swirl of thoughts in his mind. Why she changed him. Why she bothered to save him afterwards. Why she would give not only her life but the life of the women around her for a lost cause.

Laurent looks at the other women closer, and notices the white silks they were, their bare feet, the gold adorning their arms and ankles. Priestesses.

Laurent hasn’t the time energy to figure out why any of them would fight for him. Die for him. but when he glances out the window carved out of the rock and sees the snow falling, he knows he’ll soon join them if he doesn’t find shelter. Snakes are not common in Vere, particularly Arles where the chill is biting at best and freezing at worst, and so Laurent takes the coat from of the dead Veretian men, slightly too big.

He needs to find a way out of this cave, without running into Govart or his men. He couldn’t begin to guess whether they split up or gave up the search and assume he’ll die soon anyway.

A snake in a land surrounded by ice, he wouldn’t be surprised if they let him freeze to death even if they found him. Rather than doing the deed themselves, they would sit back and watch him turn red, then blue, then to ice.

Laurent pulls himself down a tunnel, keeping vigilant for any signs that someone could be near. There are only enemies around him now.

* * *

Too cold to move, Laurent remains lying in his place curled in on himself, beyond shivering. The shock set in not long after he thought himself safe, the pain settling deep. His new scales are torn and bloody, his palms not much better. Adrenaline had kept it at bay, when the need to survive had focused his mind from the worst of it, but now he hurts all over. The muscles in his arms are screaming, his tongue is on fire, his tail is a block of ice, matching the snowy weather outside the cave. He’d found another exit, but hadn’t left.

He’d likely have died in the snow if he had.

At this rate, he will die regardless.

“It is here, you said?”

Laurent opens his eyes, seeing two bright, near white, figures making their way into the cave. He blinks again, and sees two women, one holding a flaming torch. The sun is setting behind them, though it is still somewhat light out, shadowing them as the sun had done to the shaman before.

“Yes, behind the rocks,” a younger voice says quietly, in Vaskian.

He cannot move to run as the women come around the rocks Laurent has hidden himself behind, staring down at his pitiful, horrifying form. The elder woman has the torch, frowning, assessing him with a critical eye. “Hmm.” She turns her head to her companion. “Give me the cloak. Send for some horses and have the stews warmed.”

Dutifully, the younger woman passes a fur into the woman’s hands and dashes off.

The older woman watches her leave, then turns her gaze back to Laurent. Her eyes soften, and she tuts. “Whoever hurt you this way will pay for their crimes,” she assures him, squatting by his side and placing the torch carefully on the ground, so the flame does not go out. “To harm a Naga…” She shakes her head once more and moves Laurent’s stiff body forward.

He’s too stiff with the ice in his veins to even move his limbs out of their folds much faster than a snail’s pace, but the woman is patient and careful, helping Laurent out of the dirty coat and into the fur cloak—much warmer than his coat had been. She takes the flame then and holds it over his tail, distant enough to feel, but not to burn.

The young woman arrives with two other women in toe while the older woman is still dethawing Laurent’s body. His shivering has returned, which he supposes is a good sign, if the women’s smiles are anything to go by.

They eventually stop trying to warm him by torch alone, instead hefting him into their arms and carrying him out of the cave. The snow stings his skin every place it lands, and his shivering slows as he once again starts to freeze. They place him into a fur hammock hitched between the two horses, throwing several fur blankets over his whole body so he is covered from head to tail tip, protected from the elements.

Laurent cannot see where they are going, doesn’t dare to peek for the snow waiting to assault him the second he lifts the blankets, but he does know they walk for a very long time.

When they finally stop, Laurent is left in the hammock and carried on the shoulders of the women, then set gently on the ground.

His head is unveiled, and the first thing he sees is the smiling face of the older woman, then of an entire clan of women and children looking curiously at him. He glances around, taking in the sight of the fires and the tents, that he is in one himself.

The older women pets his hair back from his face. “You are safe now. I am Halvik; I am the chief. We will treat your wounds and keep you warm.”

Halvik doesn’t hesitate to begin shouting orders after that, with women hurrying forward with boiling water to be placed around his tent—warming the entire enclosure. A bowl of stew is brought in for Laurent to eat, smelling heavily of broth and seasoning; it even has pieces of venison. Two little girls wander in and begin combing his hair while a young woman sees to his wounded tail and palms.

He is still somewhat stiff, but the heated air and warm stew are doing a valiant job of raising his temperature.

The healer, or healer’s apprentice, hums as she pick pebbles out of his cuts. “I’ve never heard of a Naga with your coloring. It’s fascinating.” She runs delicate finger along his side, eyes focused. “Beautiful…” she whispers.

She pulls her hand away suddenly, her cheeks growing a stark red.

“My apologies. I am presumptuous.” Then she returns to her task, cheeks still pink.

Laurent doesn’t comment. What is there to say? He isn’t a Naga, not a true one at least. This is a form cursed upon him. he sees nothing beautiful in the scales of his new body. An unnatural, pale yellow that blends with no environment, sharper yellow and stark blue scales standing bold in random smatterings. He cannot hide, and he cannot flee because he does not know how to move his tail.

Laurent feels tears of frustration prick at his eyes, and he bites his tongue to keep them back.

A mistake.

A startled yelp at the pain has everyone in the tent jumping to attention. Laurent puts a hand over his mouth, his tongue throbbing anew.

The healer reaches out, eyes inquisitive. They’re dark and gentle like Paschal’s, and Laurent finds himself removing his hand and opening his mouth or her to inspect his tongue.

She frowns. “Oh dear…” Her eyes flit from Laurent to the two girls still standing behind him. “Come, children. Come along.”

She ushers the girls out, not a protest leaving their pouting lips. Laurent watches after them, tongue throbbing. He looks down at his hands, nails thickened and clawed. They’re a solid, milky white now. They remind him of a cat’s nails. They curl into the furs covering the ground below him.

The flap to his tent opens again, this time Halvik wandering in with a weathered elderly woman, dressed more elaborately than the healer’s apprentice had been. They wear twinning frowns.

The older woman comes in first, Halvik closing the flaps behind them both.

“Open,” the healer says, pointing a finger, shaky with age, at his mouth.

Laurent does as instructed, feeling his muscles tense and tail coil under him, tip flipping. The healer grabs his tongue with little regard for the pain it puts Laurent in, tears piercing his eyes the instant she pulls it out of his mouth. They slip to his cheeks as he looks down to watch her.

“Hmm…”

Laurent’s tongue twitches involuntarily, the half not in her grasp. He doesn’t start bleeding again, but the pink tissue looks nearly red for the pain.

She releases him, ignoring his whimper as he sucks his too-long-tongue back into his mouth, protected behind his teeth. “His change is forced, and recent. He is not a true Naga.”

The healer looks over his tail, touching him there without regard as well, unlike the apprentice. She begins to dig through her bag of bottles before pulling one out and pouring the entirety of it over his scales.

Halvik clears her throat, drawing Laurent’s attention. She is frowning still, her brows furrowed. She is squatted beside him, looking very serious. “Tell me your story.”

Laurent is sure lying at this point would not be in his favor, and if these women can help him, why bother? “I am Crown Prince Laurent of Vere. My uncle’s men brought me to Vask and a shaman turned me into this, then she and her women attacked so I could escape.”

Halvik gives a nod. “This will be easy to fix then. The shaman can reverse it.” She moves to leave.

Laurent halts her with his next words. “The shaman and all her priestess are dead.” Halvik turns, frowning once more. “The shaman’s heart was ripped from her chest and all their throats were cut open.”

Halvik goes very still by his side. She hesitates, sharing a look with the healer still seeing to his injuries. She meets Laurent’s eyes then. “Then…I’m sorry. Only the shaman who places the blessing can take it away.”

So…that’s it then. Laurent wants to scoff at ‘blessing,’ instead bowing his head.

The healer moves away from his tail then. “We’ll let you rest now.”

She leaves without further ado. Halvik turns to go with her, stopping to give Laurent a look over her shoulder. “We’ll talk more in the morning.”

That’s the least of Laurent’s concerns.


	2. Chapter 2

When morning comes, Laurent feels numb not just from the cold. Legs still gone and sight a mess, Laurent sits curled in on himself, buried under his many, many furs. His uncle had him stolen away in the night, drugged and beaten, dragged through the countryside to meet his doom in the mountains of Vask.

He’s known of his uncle’s ambitions for a long time now, knew he killed Auguste on his sickbed for them, but Laurent…he hadn’t truly thought…after everything…

Laurent squeezes his eyes shut, ducking farther under the covers. A strong chill creeps into the tent, Laurent’s tongue coming out as it finds him under the furs and hits his face. Ice and sweat stick to his taste buds, and he mouths it away with saliva, face scrunching up.

The chill leaves as quickly as it came, but he can still feel a presence in his tent with him.

“You are awake. Good,” Halvik says, loud and unconcerned of how true the statement is.

Laurent ducks his head out from under his furs. She looks well rested and refreshed, unlike Laurent, who’d slept fitfully before giving up some hours ago. He blinks several times, her image flashing between orange-white and normal colors.

She holds out a bowl of stew for him. It’s orange with heat.

He stares at it—the same stew as the night before—before unfurling from his cocoon to take it in both his hands.

Halvik sits with him while he eats, her eyes shifting between watching him and looking at his tail.

“You are fluent in Vaskian, the dialects?” she asks, once he’s sat his empty bowl aside.

Laurent nods, folding back into his furs. “I have a diplomat with Vaskian ancestry. Her pet is Vaskian as well; they taught me the dialects.” Vannes and Talik had found his interest amusing when he’d first asked about it, until nearly two years ago when it’d come through to show his true purpose as they’d begun sharing secret missives with their informants in Vask. Vannes had been appropriately impressed. Laurent had turned away from her praise, lest she’d seen the pleased flush coming to his cheeks.

“It will serve you well,” she says, nodding. “You know our language, but what do you know of our culture?”

“Matriarchy. Nomadic. You worship a pantheon and nature—”

“Tell me more about our religion.” Her dark eyes are steadfast on him, intrigued.

Laurent pauses, unsure of where this is going. “Your gods are all women. The male clans have a few male deities they worship, but are not acknowledged by the empire. You have a deep respect for nature and it’s balance…?”

Halvik smiles, small and amused. “That will do. You know our basics; that is good. It is a place to start. Let us speak of Nagas, then. Nagas are nature spirits,” she starts. “They bring about fertility and wealth, when they are pleased with humans. Famine and flood when they are not. They are hard to find in nature, however. A true Naga can shift between human and serpent form.”

Laurent’s eyes widen, hope finally filling him in devastating last few days he’s had. Perhaps—

“But one changed does not have this gift.”

And it is crushed once more, and he berates himself for being so foolish to begin with. Good things do not happen to him. Good things have never happened to him.

He should have known better.

“A changed one still holds a place of high regard within Vask.” Halvik assures.

Laurent frowns, dropping his gaze to the furs, where his tail hides beneath. “I do not wish to be revered. I am a man, passed the scales. I am not a spirit of nature.”

“You can be what you wish, to our clan. But should we pass another, they will be in awe of you, and might not understand your story as we do.”

Laurent glances up. Halvik makes it sound as though he will be staying with them.

She laughs at his expression, loudly. She throws her head back and slaps her knee, and once she’s calmed herself, she gives a wolfish grin. “Did you think after all this, we would turn you out in the snow?” She huffs another laugh, shaking her head. “No. We would keep you with us, if you would care to stay.”

Where else would he have to go? Returning to Vere would only result in his immediate death, if not from the cold, then the villagers coming to kill him, ‘monster’ on their lips.

Halvik places a hand on Laurent’s furs, over his tail. He stares at it for a moment, at the scars lining her skin, then looks into her eyes, world-weary and gentle. She’s probably had many children in her life, and seen many battles. She is a warrior in every sense of the word. “We can help you. Let us.”

And Laurent believes her.

* * *

It takes another week for Laurent’s wounds to heal enough for him to try moving around on his tail and hands again. The healer and her apprentice both come to see him twice a day, slathering his tail in some scentless ointment. He learns the apprentice’s name is Kashel, but the healer only answers to Mother.

From what Laurent has seen, she is the oldest in the clan, and seems to command as much respect as Halvik. Not that Laurent can say he has seen much.

Laurent doesn’t leave his tent often.

He mourns his vision, his legs, his life.

Whatever he had been in Vere, whatever he might have become, that life is over. He doesn’t think he ever missed Arles so much as he does now. He misses the familiarity of his home, the ghosts who haunted it, the memories that use to suffocate him. He misses his swordplay with Jord and Orlant, riding his mare, reading…

And Halvik lets him have this usually; leaving him to suffer in private.

He has little option other days. Halvik will force him out, sometimes. Either by convincing him he needs to come out, or refusing to have food brought to him. “If he is hungry, he will come and join us,” she would say to the women. “Laurent has to learn how to move without dragging his tail behind him,” she explained to the children.

She isn’t wrong, but learning to move in this form would mean accepting he’ll never have his legs back. That this is who he is now, what he’s become and all he’ll ever be.

It’s another week with that thought poisoning his mind that Laurent, filled with spite, decides he is better than this. His uncle will have to try harder than this to kill him. He is sure that the shaman was meant to damn or curse his body before killing him, a final act of defilement before he is properly disposed of. He is _almost_ sure this was the shaman’s way of giving him a chance to get revenge.

She might have thought she’d live long enough to change him back.

Laurent sighs quietly, wrapping a fur cloak tight around his shoulders and dragging himself out into the cold of the encampment. The claws his nails have turned to help in getting a grip on the ground, but the icy earth freezes them. Burns them. Makes them turn blue, then red when they reheat by the fires.

It takes many long, freezing hours, but eventually Laurent learns how to slither, how to get around the camp when snow isn’t covering the ground. He spends most of his time around the fires though, too cold to learn how to move much faster than a leisure walking pace.

The women accept his presence quickly, even as he can see them containing their excitement every time he joins them for a meal rather than secluding himself in his tent. He remembers people looking at Auguste like that, with sparkles in their eyes. But that had been because he was their golden prince, bringing smiles and prosperity wherever he went. Laurent, however, is a lie of their beliefs. They see him and think he will bring them wealth and fertility, but he won’t. He can’t. He isn’t a true Naga, and he certainly wasn’t given divine powers when given the form of a divine.

He is blasphemy taken form.

Halvik though, she doesn’t treat him like a semi-divine being. She hardly treats him like the prince he is. Was. On the days when snow doesn’t coat the ground, she asks Laurent to join the clan rather than rot in his tent. And he feels like he _is_ rotting. His vision feels blurry, his scales itchy.

This goes on for several days. He scratches, rubs his eyes, feels on edge with everyone and everything for how irritated his skin is. It’s only after rubbing at his eyes and finding a layer of skin left smeared over his cheek that he realizes he’s shedding.

Halvik laughs openly at his horror. She tells him warm water or steam will help the process along, if the skin proves less than compliant in slipping loose. Her nonchalance eases him more than he’s ever going to admit to her.

The children fawn over how bright his scales are once the old layer comes off, asking to touch or if it hurts. Their mothers smile on. Halvik watches Laurent, silent but with a touch of something delicate in her eyes.

He can see her slowly begin to smile as Laurent allows the children to touch, and more so when he answers their questions. She turns away, going about keeping up with the rest of the clan, leaving Laurent to his devices. Laurent feels like something fundamental has shifted between them.

His chest feels light with this new, foreign sensation. He scratches over his heart, feeling the deep thuds under his nails. It isn’t a wholly unpleasant feeling, he thinks, as a smile creeps onto his lips.

Laurent doesn’t help much with the chores around the camp, other than cooking. He stays by the fires when he isn’t curled up in his tent, but Halvik doesn’t let him stay with them without taking up his share of the work. She’d handed him a rabbit by its ears and told him to cook it, then she’d walked away and missed Laurent awkwardly butchering the poor thing.

It hadn’t really been salvageable in his mind, but the women had managed, gently teasing him for his lack of skills, then proceeded to teach him how to skin one—a new one—properly.

Laurent feels a swelling of pride for this small victory.

It’s been so long since he’s had a victory.

As spring begins creeping its way closer, the snow falls less, and they decide to move farther south for fresher hunting game. Laurent watches how the other women fold up their tents and bedrolls. He tries mimicking their tucks and folds. It…isn’t a total failure. It looks better than some of the children’s.

Laurent thinks he’ll end up having to slither the whole way to their next encampment, and considers what this will do to his newly healed, freshly shed scales, when Halvik guides a horse to him. He tenses, expecting the beast to become skittish the closer it came, the more of his scent it took in. Laurent’s tongue creeps out, tasting the scents on the air.

The horse doesn’t taste like nerves, it doesn’t flick its ears or jerk its head. In fact, once they’ve reached him, Laurent is stunned that the horse, a beautiful dapple gray mare, sniffs his hair and tries eating it like hay.

This small act of normalcy, something he hasn’t seen since his horse had been killed, brings a laugh to his lips. He pets the mare’s cheek, shifting around to pet her flanks. “She can’t bear my weight.” Laurent is sure of this. He’s easily a hundred pounds more than he was before the tail, possibly two with how he’s working the muscles solid.

“I never thought she could. It took two stallions to haul you into camp,” Halvik says, coming to his side. Laurent is a lower head level than he’s used to. Without legs, he’s roughly two feet closer to the ground. Halvik stands over him by a head. She claims once he’s grown stronger, he’ll be able to hold himself higher; Laurent isn’t so sure of this. “We were planning to hitch a cart to her.”

As she say this, two women come over hauling a small cart behind them and a cart harness. Laurent watches as they hitch the cart, offering the mare assuring pets on her flank.

He makes his way around and curls into the cart. It is hauling many of the furs and skins, giving him something soft to curl his tail over. When Halvik had said they’d planned to hitch a cart to her, he’d thought she meant for him. No. She was offering for him to ride in a cart they’d been planning to use anyway. He turns to her, speaking with the women and paying Laurent no mind at all, and thinks perhaps she just loaded furs and skins onto the cart for Laurent’s sake, or to play at coincidence. To act as though she hadn’t done it for him.

He’d spare her his thought and simply lets the kindness be.

“How are your eyes?” Halvik asks suddenly, as the women walk to their horses. She has a hand on the side of the cart, her hip cocked. Her own eyes are scrutinizing as they gaze at him.

Laurent tucks his tail tip beneath the curtain his cloak has created around his body. “Better, after the shedding.”

She shakes her head and taps by her right eye. “Your vision.”

Oh. Laurent purses his lips. “Improving. I’ve almost got it under control.”

She nods. “And how’s your shot?” She takes the bow from behind her back and holds it out to him.

Laurent has impeccable aim, having trained with throwing knives for years now. Though he’ll admit he’s more comfortable with a sword in his hands than a bow, he does know how to use both. So he holds out his hands wordlessly, and she smiles, passing it and a quiver of arrows over.

Their caravan begins their descend southbound after that.

* * *

He hears the whistle of the arrow before he sees it. It thumps into the side of his cart and flusters his mare, surprised. She shakes her mane out and huffs. Laurent rips the arrow out of the wood, knowing on sight of it that this is another Vaskian clan attacking them. A male clan. The riders around him pull out their own weapons. Halvik rides over to his side, sword in hand.

“How many?” she asks the group.

Laurent’s eyes flutter, blinking and shifting his vision. It takes a moment, and several more arrows whistle through the air as he concentrates, but eventually he can make out several small orange-white dots riding their way on horseback.

“About twenty,” he says, knocking an arrow and aiming.

Halvik grabs his arrow and lowers his bow, frowning. “No. Go to the children and keep them safe.” She thrusts her sword into his hands, nodding towards the canvas wagon the children were riding in.

Laurent goes, slithering at a pace too slow for his taste, and joins the kids, all of them young and scared. They’re all huddled together behind Kashel at the rear of the cart.

Laurent gives her a nod, that she is not alone to defend the children, and turns to the opening. Waiting.

They can hear the fight a little ways off, passed a few of the younger children whimpering in fear. Laurent reminds himself there are more women in their clan than there are men attacking, but a stray arrow or infected wound can kill even the most renowned warrior.

He knows this lesson all too well.

He remembers the last fight he’d witnessed. There’d been more women than men in that fight too, and all the women had been slaughtered anyway. Their throats slit. A heart ripped from its chest.

Laurent’s own chest is already tight when the canvas is pulled viciously away. A scowling man is standing there, missing a tooth and black paint smeared over his face. The second he sees Laurent, sees Laurent’s changed eyes and scales reflecting the light, his face turns from fierce to ashen, and more so when Laurent hisses at him, a shock of fang growing in his mouth and making him that much more dangerous.

The man turns to run, just not quick enough. Laurent cuts his head off with a swing of Halvik’s sharp sword, sliding himself out of the wagon to ward away any other man thinking to come and kill innocents.

A blaze sets in Laurent’s heart. He’s _sickened_ by all these men hurting innocents.

But as more men catch sight of him, their eyes turn wide and they turn tail.

Laurent watches them all run, a few slipping from their mounts as arrows hit them, and it takes a very long time after that before Laurent can calm himself. He notices his grip on Halvik’s sword has his knuckles turned white, his nails digging divots into his palms, that the owner of the sword herself has been standing by his side, watching the horizon with him.

The sun has begun to set now, when they should have had hours more of daylight. The women around them have begun to set up a quick camp for the night.

Laurent blinks, taking a breath. He peeks into the wagon and sees the children all still there, sleeping in a pile on Kashel and each other, but furs have been slipped in from the rider’s end so they wouldn’t be cold.

Laurent watches their breathing for a moment, blinking several more times to see the heat they put out. Laurent feels his teeth, the roof of his mouth, all shifting. It tickles, and somehow he knows the fangs he’d suddenly grown in his wrath have receded.

Halvik lets him work himself down from his emotional high, to calm the fire in his heart.

He turns to her, feeling weak suddenly, and hands her sword back to her. There’s dried blood on it.

She gives him a nod, then a smile. “And here I thought you were just a pretty face. I can work with a fighter.”


	3. Chapter 3

The sun had been blazing, and it had been fine to lie out in. Until his skin stared to burn. And by the time Laurent had found a nice tree to curl up in, clouds had begun to roll in.

“Unbelievable,” Laurent muttered at the sky. He shook his head and climbed into the tree anyway.

Now, it’s pouring rain and Laurent has given up on the weather. The tree lets water roll from one leaf to the next, dipping on Laurent’s body before falling to the ground so far below. Laurent let’s his arm dangle, watching a drop fall from his claws nail.

His tongue comes out to taste the air, expecting water and grass and overripe fruit, and instead catching a hint of musk.

It instantly puts Laurent on edge. The children are too young to taste of musk, and women simply do not, even at their foulest. Laurent turns and curls lower to see through a gap in the leaves, tongue coming out once more, eyes shifting for heat.

He sees a man stumbling over the grass, hugging his sides and shivering. The rain pelts into his side and the wind nearly knocks him over.

Laurent watches him come closer still, until he collapses under Laurent’s tree, falling to his knees and sluggishly shifting to lean against the wet bark.

Laurent waits, curious. The man is Akielon, based on his skin and dress. He tastes like horse, but Laurent does not see one anywhere. He must have gotten separated. He doesn’t taste like blood, so he probably wasn’t attacked, but Laurent surveys the mountains around them anyway. To be sure.

The air tastes the same as always, aside from the man passed out below him.

Laurent turns his attention back to the man collapsed against the tree. From his view point, all he can see is a wet mop of curls and a white dress so wet he can see the dark skin beneath pressing through. Laurent ignores the heat it brings to his cheeks when his eyes catch sight of a certain piece of dark skin the wet fabric clings to.

Laurent curls his way down the tree, quiet as a cat. The man’s head is flopped forward, his breathing harsh and shallow. He has a dark bruise on his arm, another on his thigh, and several on his knees.

So he has been in a fight. Or perhaps he is an escaped criminal.

Laurent inches closer, a hand resting on the hilt of his sword. Halvik had gifted him one identical to her own. He keeps it with him when he leaves the camp. His hips are too narrow to wear the sword on a belt, so he keep a harness diagonal over his chest with his sword at his back.

His finger twitch for it now, preemptive protection. He doesn’t know this man’s crimes, his skills. As it is though, the man looks close to death.

Laurent’s tail furls around itself. He stands taller now, just an inch over Halvik. He’s grown stronger with her help. She taught him Vaskian sword techniques, one’s that didn’t require him to have legs to perform. She also taught him how to better camouflage himself in the wild. His tail being as bright as it is meant he was harder to hide, but the brightness of it also told those around him that he didn’t need to hide, because he is venomous. Dangerous.

Still, certain sands in creek beds reflected like his tail, and he could stay there and sun his scales without fear of attack. She helped him strengthen himself enough to climb high enough in trees to go unnoticed by those without an animal’s sense of smell.

Laurent slithers around himself, unsure what to do with this sad pile of person slumped before him. He could go find a scout and have her help him drag the man to camp. He could climb back up the tree and see what the man does without interference, be it die or get up and wander off once he wakes back up.

He feels a bite of wind and icy rain on his skin and thinks of the cold seeping into his body, so frozen to his core he couldn’t move. He thinks of Halvik and the girls finding him and saving him from a fate likely worse than death. He looks at the man with new eyes, and feels empathy.

Laurent shifts closer and tips the man’s face up to get a look at his features.

The breath is robbed from his lungs.

“Damianos…” he whispers.

The sound of his name causes Damianos’ eyes start moving behind his lids, then they blink open, bleary. Laurent removes his hand from his chin as though burned. His dark eyes roll over Laurent’s face for long moments, shifting between his eyes and lips, his cheeks and nose.

“Wha…” He looks to the side, at the rain and rocks, then back to Laurent. His face is stricken. “Where am I?” he asks in Akielon.

Laurent pulls the sword from its sheath and brings it to Damianos’ neck, glaring. Damianos presses his back to the tree. “You are in my territory,” he hisses in Damianos’ language.

Damianos glances down, noticing his tail for the first time, now that there is more space between them.

Before he can say a word, Laurent pushes the blade closer to his skin. “Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you now.”

No less stricken than before, if a touch more cautious, Damianos says, “I need help.”

Laurent hears the beat of hooves over rock, and tastes the air. Damianos flinches back at its appearance.

The beats suddenly pick up speed, and with each flick of his tongue, Laurent can taste the sweat of women and horse. He can taste Halvik before he hears her chuckle. “Well, what have we here?”

“A trespasser,” Laurent says, switching back to Vaskian, narrowing his eyes on Damianos. “He claims he needs help.”

“Hmm…” Halvik dismounts, stepping over Laurent’s tail to come by his side. She signals he lower his sword, and Laurent hesitates. If this man had never fought Auguste—

Laurent lowers his sword, fury curling in his chest thick enough to choke, and he hisses at Damianos, baring his fangs. He sheaths his sword, forcing himself to calm with deep, controlled breathing. He doesn’t let the waters of his animalistic nature consume him, drown his human nature and rationale with anger and instinct.

He glances over to Kashel, who’d been riding with Halvik, and sees the satchel at her hip, filled with herbs and jars of liquids.

“What might you be running from?” he hears Halvik asks, and turns back to their conversation.

Damianos has his brows furrowed, and turns his eyes to Laurent.

For translation.

Laurent frowns, then notices Halvik’s gaze on him as well.

With a glare, “She asks what you’re running from.”

Damianos sighs, and Laurent can see a glimmer of hope come to his eyes. “I was heading to Vere to witness the new king’s ascension when some mercenaries attacked me and my guards.”

Laurent’s breath is robbed from his lungs once more. _The new king’s ascension_. His uncle is ascending the throne? Has fifty days passed? Did they bother looking for him or did they simply take his uncle’s word for it when he said Laurent was gone and dead?

Laurent knocks his head towards Damianos. “He is crown prince of Akielos. He was traveling to witness the ascension of the new Veretian king.”

Halvik had been smiling up to this point, amused by it all. She frowns now, the corners of her eyes growing tight. He can see that she wants to ask if he is okay. He can see her decide now isn’t the time.

“He was attacked by mercenaries on his way,” Laurent continues.

Halvik forced her worry for Laurent aside to deal with the matter at hand. “Tell us more about the mercenaries.”

Damianos nods when Laurent repeats this. “They spoke Veretian. They looked like they’d been camping instead of staying at inns. They had dried blood on their clothing.”

Laurent frowns.

Damianos adds, “The man who seemed to be their leader was a giant, and he had an ugly face. I think his nose may have been broken.”

A particular man flashes through his mind, but what are the odds? Laurent keeps the thought tucked away though, because the odds, low as they might seem, should not be ignored.

Halvik falls quiet once Laurent tells her this. Kashel has wandered off to a bush and is inspecting its berries and leaves, the horses graze, Damianos waits with bated breath. Laurent doesn’t like how long she’s taking to decide; usually she just has trespassers killed or released.

“Kashel!”

Kashel stops her inspection, coming to hurriedly join them. She frowns at Damianos.

“See to his wounds once we return to camp,” Halvik instructs. “I’ll let Mother know you are busy.”

Kashel nods and helps Damianos to his feet, her brows pulling together when he winces. _Good_ , Laurent thinks, viciously. He flinches back when she tries to place a makeshift blindfold over his eyes after they’ve reached her horse. Laurent comes over to help.

He folds his arms over his chest, giving Damianos a once over. He stands taller than Laurent, by nearly a head. It’s annoying. “We cannot let you see the path to camp. Either you put the cloth over your eyes, or I knock you unconscious.” Damianos looks unconvinced, as though Laurent were no threat to a man of his size now that surprise is no longer on Laurent’s side, and Laurent shrugs, picking up a fist sized rock near his tail.

Damianos’ eyes widen fractionally, and he gestures at Kashel for her to place the binding around his eyes.

Laurent drops the rock.

* * *

Returning to camp had taken a while with Laurent slithering beside the horses. He moves at a faster pace now, a slow run at his fastest. Halvik says he’ll get faster, that she has seen a Naga in action. She hadn’t told him the story, but she’d gazed off, lost in her memories, and Laurent…Laurent recognized the look on her face. He knew it would not be a pleasant story to hear, nor to recount.

When they make it, the rain having slowed to a gentle drizzle, Kashel sets about Damianos’ blindfold and helping him off the horse. And Laurent sees no more than that, making instead for his tent. His journey is unhindered. He doubts his face looks jovial enough for interaction.

He throws back his tent flap and coils around himself, pulling his cloak over his shoulders. He can hear the stir Damianos has caused with the women and children of the clan. It isn’t often they have a new guest, and the last one they’d had was Laurent. What might the new man bring with him?

Laurent scoffs, burrowing deeper.

The flap to his tent opens, Halvik squatting in the rain and holding his eye. She says nothing, but Laurent knows why she is here. She will go away if he sends her so…but why put off to later what can be dealt with now?

Laurent dips his head to allow her entry.

The flap closes with a wet slap and she settles on the furs across from him. “Your uncle. He is to be crowned, then.”

“It would seem so.”

She nods, leaning forward and resting her chin on her hand. “What does this mean? For Vere, for Vask?” She pauses, eyes softening, searching. “For you?”

“For Vere? He’ll go to war with Akielos.” Laurent thinks of the attack on Damianos, and makes the connection, brows furrowing. “He tried to destabilize the country by killing their heir. The next successor is illegitimate; Kastor’s mother was an unmarried lover and Theomedes isn’t of the royal line. He was actually falling ill, last I heard…”

Laurent frowns. How things always seem to line up so perfectly for Uncle.

Laurent sighs, moving on. “For Vask, it could mean different things depending on where within the war we get, and how beneficial my uncle decides you are at each of those points.”

“That can be dealt with as it comes then. But what about _you_?” she asks.

Laurent drops her gaze. He doesn’t…really know what it means for him. He shrugs. “It…means my country has moved on.” They wouldn’t wait for his return, especially when his uncle is probably ‘mourning’ him already. He could never truly return anyway, not in this form.

Halvik frowns. “I am sorry. I wish…” she doesn’t allow herself to finish. It would do Laurent no good to hear fanciful sentiments and empty words. Halvik pauses, then reaches her hand out, petting Laurent’s shoulder. She gives him a tight smile, then gets up.

She leaves the tent. And Laurent.

* * *

Laurent’s eyes blink open, the pale light in his tent shifting between deep blue and light pink as his vision shifts with his waking. Laurent rolls from his back to his stomach, his tail coiling and curling, caught up under his furs.

He pushes himself up and peeks out the flap of his tent. A few women are up, washing their babies in the creek or starting on breakfast for the camp, but he doesn’t see Damianos, doesn’t taste male musk on the air, and makes an escape from his tent.

Sword left in his tent, Laurent heads for a secluded spot for some time alone with his thoughts, without the threat of Halvik prying or a child wanting attention. He doesn’t fault them; she worries and the children are excitable. But Laurent…he needs this time away, and his spot is close enough to camp to not feel the need for his sword.

He comes upon his spot nearly an hour later; a little drop before the grassy hills turn to a rougher terrain, with breaks in the grass where dirt and rock show through. The area is sparse of trees, with only one or two dotting the landscape for miles. The sky is clear of clouds, unfiltering the rising sun.

Laurent settles, curling his tail into a knot as his mind wanders back to Vere, to his home. What use to be his home.

With Uncle’s ascension, Laurent will have no place in Arles. Even should he return, Uncle’s sway will be more than ironclad within the court and council; he’d have Laurent named an impostor, have him thrown in the dungeon and tortured, if not outright offer Laurent as a reward to the mercenaries he calls soldiers. He’d drag it out and make sure Laurent understood how grave his mistake of returning truly was. He’d relish in Laurent’s pain, and not just the physical. All of it.

Laurent spares a prayerful thought that his own men are dismissed or re-posted to some forgotten outland, and not simply executed for ‘not keeping His Royal Highness safe from the villains who stole him away,’ as was their sworn duty.

Laurent looks at this hands, the claws his fingertips have become. He digs his nails into the earth, moist and cool against his skin. Jord and Orlant, all of his most loyal men, deserved better than a treasonous hanging and an unmarked grave.

He takes a breath; settles the riot his stomach has become.

There is…nothing Laurent can do. Not for Vere, not for them, not for himself. Halvik made it clear he has no known cure, dead with the woman who turned him. And without a cure, he could never hope to return. Not with the few weeks allotted to him before his uncle is crowned. Some rough six weeks is not enough time to find a potentially non-existent cure and confront his uncle for the usurp he’s attempted. There is no time to plan, no time to search, no time—

There’s no time.

Laurent wraps his arms around himself, a chill creeping up his spine. He felt less trapped with his uncle’s horrid red duvet draped over his body, his arm over Laurent’s waist—

With a growl and heat shifted vision, Laurent turns, more animal than man in his peaking emotional state.

He leaves, not wishing to taint such a peaceful space with such distasteful thoughts.

Camp will not make him feel better, not with Damianos’ scent all over the air, hanging about like a wash-heavy curtain not yet hanged to dry. Laurent feels agitated, like he has no place he can turn to without someone from his past to haunt him at every turn. Chased and cornered, Laurent’s muscles tense and flex, fight or flight warring with nowhere to go.

When he re-enters the boundaries of the camp, he sees that everyone has risen, chatting and attending their chores. Halvik is at her dais, Damianos gesturing at her side, looking over a large unrolled paper weighted at the corners on the ground before them—a map. He doubts much is being accomplished with their language barrier.

She glances up and catches his eye, and Laurent holds it, raising his chin. Halvik smiles, waving him over. Damianos looks up, seeing her hand, then turns to watch Laurent. Laurent savors the satisfaction at seeing his shoulders tensing up, his lips pursing.

Laurent can almost taste his unease, his tongue flicking the air only making it more obvious.

Halvik tips her chin to the map. “He is pointing at lines that lead between Akielos and Vere, but he speaks too fast to pick anything up.” She waves her hand dismissively, smirking. Then, she props her chin on her palm, eyes mischievous. “How fortunate for your timing, to be returning just before I decided to leave this meeting in more capable hands.”

Laurent watches her wink, then stand and leave without further word on the matter.

He and Damianos stare after her retreating form, then dark eyes are on him again. “Will she be back?”

“No,” Laurent says, still watching the woman as she abandons him. “You’ll be dealing with me if you want anything from us.”

“You’ll help then?” he asks immediately, jumping at Laurent’s opening.

Laurent turns his eyes to Damianos then, barely, giving a cutting look. “If I find you worthy of my time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another link to more beautiful artwork for this fic!! (Again, please let me know if these don't work.)
> 
> https://alinecrosser.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/cer-capri-reversebang-snek3-chli.png

**Author's Note:**

> Another link to the artwork is here: https://alinecrosser.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/cer-capri-reversebang-snek2-chli.png
> 
> and here: https://alinecrosser.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/capri-reversebang-snek.png
> 
> (Please let me know if these links don't work...)


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